Top Connecticut Republican and Democratic party officials are battling over what exactly Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) meant earlier this year when he spoke of donating to charity campaign contributions he received from embattled executives at American International Group.

As the Center for Responsive Politics noted Thursday, since Dodd was last re-elected in 2004, he collected $56,700 from a dozen AIG executives, along with their spouses, who were reportedly recipients of bonuses awarded by the company after it received a government bailout. All of these campaign contributions came during 2006, as Dodd both launched a presidential run and began fund-raising for his current re-election effort.

Press accounts from March indicate that some, if not nearly all, of these individuals returned their bonuses last spring after public outrage against AIG’s use of taxpayer money for bonuses soared — and at least one individual reportedly donated his bonus to charity after receiving it.

At the time, the chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party, Christopher Healy, urged Dodd to donate to charity most of the campaign contributions Dodd had received over his career from AIG and its employees, who have been Dodd’s fourth largest financial backer, contributing $285,200 since 1989.

And Healy expected Dodd to part with at least some of the cash.

“Earlier this year, Sen. Dodd said he was going to give some of this money to charity. We took him at his word that he would do that,” Healy told Capital Eye. “This is another example of something Dodd has promised to do that has not been done… I don’t know why they didn’t think people wouldn’t follow up.”

Connecticut Democratic Party Communications Director Colleen Flanagan, however, maintains that Dodd is living up to his word.

“Sen. Dodd did not break a promise,” Flanagan told Capital Eye. “Sen. Dodd has taken no AIG contributions after the bailout, and in fact, none since September 2008.”

All along, she says, Dodd promised only to donate to charity any contributions he “received post-bailout from AIG executives who accepted bonuses.”

In a statement to Capital Eye on Thursday about AIG-linked contributions to Dodd from earlier years, she wrote, “These donations would not fall under the parameters previously outlined… It’s ridiculous to expect donors to foresee what their company was going to do, in some cases, 10 years after they donated to Sen. Dodd.

“If we’ve missed someone from AIG who has given recently (i.e., around the time of, or following, the bonuses),” she continued, “please let us know.”

Press reports from the spring don’t define the exact time parameters that Dodd would use to determine which donations from AIG employees he would donate to charity.

On March 21, the Hartford Courant wrote, “Dodd has said he would return all campaign contributions from AIG and its employees.”

On March 24, the Connecticut Post reported that Dodd would “go through his list and give back or donate to charity contributions linked to bailout money.”

The Post further quoted Dodd saying, “I don’t want those contributions,” in reference to any contributions tainted by the AIG scandal. Dodd also said in the article that prior to the last year, AIG was a “solid and well-respected company.”

On March 30, Dodd spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said, “Contributions received from any individual who accepted these bonuses from AIG last week will be donated to charity,” according to the Washington Times.

As the Center for Responsive Politics reported Thursday, during the first nine months of this year, Dodd contributed $23,500 to charity — none of which was related to previous contributions from AIG employees.

Of this amount, $16,000 was specifically contributed to the receivership fund established to help the victims of the fraud allegedly carried out by Robert Allen Stanford and the Stanford Financial Group. Earlier this year, Dodd had pledged to donate to charity all of the contributions he had received from the alleged fraudster.

The Dodd campaign declined to elaborate on the specific reasons for the additional $7,500 in charitable contributions.

“Charitable contributions are made for different reasons, which are decided on a case by case basis,” Flanagan said in a statement to Capital Eye. “No contribution will ever influence Sen. Dodd’s legislative agenda or other official actions. Though a strong advocate for campaign finance reform, Sen. Dodd has to operate within the current system, and in that system, anyone can submit a contribution — if we find that contribution should be returned or otherwise redistributed, it is.”

Last fall, Dodd also pledged to no longer accept campaign contributions from the political action committees of companies receiving Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.

CRP’s review of the Federal Election Commission’s disbursement data shows that Dodd has refunded contributions from the PACs of TARP recipients including Goldman Sachs, Wachovia and U.S. Bancorp. He also returned a contribution from the PAC of UBS, which the Swiss government bailed out.

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